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Memoir Monday, May 16th, 2017

I felt rather dismayed when I saw almost a full month has gone by since I lasted posted here. I’m disappointed in myself because when I started this blog in August 2016 the goal was to write multiple times a week, every week.

Right around the New Year, I began to let posts slide. I rationalized that because of the holidays, I could take a break. Then wouldn’t you know it – I let posts slide again. And again.

I’m sure I have “valid” reasons for not blogging and as I’m typing away right now, my brain is telling me, YES! Yes, you do. The writers’ conference that I participated in in late March required me to spend extra time on getting my second book in shape for editor and agent critiques. Then came the revisions, which I’m still working on.

I also just felt so dang tired these past few months. Winter is hard on those of us with sleep disorders. The lack of sunlight made me feel lethargic and the moment it turned dark outside all I wanted to do was read in bed. Then, there was my crap diet that lasted from March 25th, when my husband and I completely lost control at a conference where we had multiple all-you-can-eat meals, all the way to May 2nd. I can pretty much sum up my diet during that time span as: SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR, zucchini noodle stir fry, SUGAR, SUGAR, SUGAR.

No wonder I’ve been so exhausted and I’m pretty sure I have a sugar addiction. It’s funny how poor choices in one area snowball into the rest of your life. Poor diet led to increasingly poor sleep, which made me feel tired and was exacerbated by lack of sunlight, so I made even poorer diet choices because of feeling so tired, which then made me feel even more tired and because I’m so tired, I’m then not meeting my writing goals, making me get down on myself, and then I want a DQ Blizzard to make me feel better, and then, oh, what’s that? I’m feeling even more tired and the sugar makes me have poor sleep. Again. And the cycle repeats. And repeats. And repeats.

At the very least I have awareness of this pattern. And (once again) I am consciously choosing to break the cycle. The good news is I have excellent support from my husband, who also has a sugar addiction, and was feeling just as sick and tired of feeling sick and tired as I was.

We are currently on Day 15 of a 26-day diet detox, which banned sugar (including fruit) the first week, and is 90% raw, 100% vegan. Completing this detox will be a truly great achievement for me and, not surprisingly, I’m already sleeping better and I have more energy. That’s how I find myself writing this blog post at 8:00pm on a Tuesday evening instead of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook to trick my brain into thinking I’m accomplishing something.

So I’m making progress — YAY!

While I finish the remaining 11 days of the diet detox, I’m also going to spend some time contemplating my goals. Specifically, I want a better awareness of the balance between my ambition and productivity. As evidenced by some of my older blog posts, this is one area in the past where I have set myself up for failure by being too optimistic about what I can realistically accomplish. But it’s also something I am keenly aware of and trying to improve and frankly, I’m tired of making excuses for not meeting my own goals.

In the meantime, I am going to give myself a small writing goal. Post this blog tonight and then post another one on May 22nd. As always, I thank you for reading my blog and for your love and support.